SPANISH CIVIL WAR TANKSeducacion-holistica.org/notepad/documentos/War/New Vanguard/Spani… · Soviet T-26. This captured ... The Carro Veloce CV 3/35 was the most common version

SPANISH CIVIL WARTANKSThe Proving Ground for Blitzkrieg

STEVEN J ZALOGA ILLUSTRATED BY TONY BRYAN

© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com

NEW VANGUARD • 170


STEVEN J ZALOGA ILLUSTRATED BY TONY BRYAN


AUTHOR’S NOTEThe author would especially like to thank John Prigent, Oscar Bruña Royo,Mary Habeck, and Ken Estes for their help on this project.

First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Osprey Publishing,

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4

TANK TECHNOLOGY ON THE EVE OF WAR 5

TANKS IN SPAIN 10

ORIGINS OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR 12

INITIAL BATTLES FOR MADRID 14

NATIONALIST EXPANSION 29

FINAL REPUBLICAN REINFORCEMENTS 32

LESSONS OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR 40

FURTHER READING 46• Articles

• Books

INDEX 48


INTRODUCTION

The Spanish Civil War was the first European conflict to see the extensiveuse of tanks since their debut in World War I. It came at a crucial time in European tank development, when production went from a few hundredtanks per year to many thousands. The Great Powers looked to the Spanishconflict to validate their own tank programs and to learn any importantlessons about tank warfare. The Spanish Civil War has been regarded as theproving ground for blitzkrieg. Spain was seen as a laboratory for Germany,Italy, and the Soviet Union to test out their tanks and tactical doctrine on theeve of World War II.

SPANISH CIVIL WAR TANKS THE PROVING GROUND FOR BLITZKRIEG

The dominant tank in the

Spanish Civil War was the

Soviet T-26. This captured

Republican T-26 Model 1937

was put on display in front of

the Gran Kursaal in San

Sebastián in 1938 after its

capture near Tremp-Lérida.

(NARA)


tactical lessons. Tank employment in Spain was unique, and so no soberobserver could draw any profound conclusions about the nature of futuretank warfare. Tanks were used in relatively small numbers by poorly trainedcrews with little or no tactical understanding by senior commanders. Manyarmies did use the Spanish experience to validate their own preconceptionsabout tank warfare, but this was a misuse of the lessons. While the SpanishCivil War did not have a major impact on the development of tank doctrine,it had significant influence on tank design. The tanks used in the conflict werelightly armored and armed mostly with machine guns. The importantexception was the Soviet T-26, which was armed with a powerful 45mm dual-purpose gun. This tank so dominated the Spanish battlefield that it endedonce and for all the question about whether machine-gun-armed tanks wereviable. They were not, and suddenly most European armies realized that theirsubstantial investment in machine-gun-armed tanks in the early 1930s wasseriously flawed.

Spain also saw the first widespread use of dedicated antitank guns, notablythe German Rheinmetall 37mm and its Soviet copy, the 45mm antitank gun.When skillfully used, these weapons could prove to be an effective counter torampaging tanks. While the Spanish conflict did not decisively demonstratethe relative balance between tank and antitank warfare, it strongly suggestedthat the cheap and lightly armored tanks of the 1930s were too vulnerable.The lessons of the war spurred the production of medium tanks, which wouldform the steel core of Europe’s armies in World War II.

TANK TECHNOLOGY ON THE EVE OF WAR

In the wake of World War I, most European armies neglected further tankdevelopment. An ample supply of tanks was still on hand from the war, andthe meager defense budgets of the 1920s did not encourage expensive newprograms. Germany was forbidden tanks under the Versailles Treaty and theSoviet Union was still licking its wounds after a debilitating civil war. Tankdevelopment began to accelerate in the early 1930s. The World War I tankshad been mechanically arthritic even in their prime, and by the 1930s weremostly worn out.

The Carro Veloce CV 3/35 was

the most common version of

the Italian tankette in service

in Spain, though some of the

earlier CV 3/33s were also

used. The fasces marking

on the superstructure side

indicates a command vehicle.

(NARA)

5

This book will argue that in fact the Spanish Civil War provided few clear


and was the most influential tank manufacturing country in the early 1930s.This was due not only to its weapons firms such as Vickers, but also to itsvisionary military thinkers such as J. F. C. Fuller, who wrote extensively onthe nature of future war and the equipment needs of modern armies. One of the most influential developments in Britain was the Carden-Loyd tankette.This was a small, two-man vehicle armed with a single machine gun. From a tactical standpoint, these inexpensive tankettes could be built in largenumbers and swarm over the battlefield in force. This was in fact anelaboration of the concepts of the French general Jean-Baptiste Estienne,which had spawned the Renault FT tank in 1917. Regardless of its tacticalmerits, the tankette idea was popular in Europe because such vehicles were so cheap. They seemed like a prudent choice when defense budgets wereso meager. The Soviet Union adopted the Carden-Loyd under license as the T-27, Italy made a copy as the CV 3/33, and Poland built its own example

as the TK. These tankettes were the most widelyproduced armored vehicles of the early 1930s and theItalian CV 3/35 would see extensive service in Spain.

Germany was not allowed tanks but the Reichswehrexperimented with armored chassis under the guise of artillery tractors. Krupp had been given a contract todevelop a light tractor in 1931 that was the surreptitiousbasis for a future tank. After Hitler came to power in1933, the Versailles Treaty restrictions were renouncedand the Krupp light tractor emerged as Nazi Germany’sfirst tank, the Panzerkampfwagen I (PzKpfw I). Thistank was significantly larger than tankettes and had a traversable turret. Technically, it was a furtherevolution of the French Renault FT of 1917 but withmore modern automotive design. German tank designin 1917–18 had focused on the construction of smallnumbers of very large tanks, epitomized by the A7V, but these designs were clumsy and too costly. After thismistake during World War I, German opinion swung in favor of Estienne’s view that a “bee swarm” ofinexpensive tanks was more valuable than a handful of massive tanks. The PzKpfw I satisfied this tactical

A PzKpfw I Ausf A of the

1st Batallón de Carros de

Combate in Vergara during

operations in the Basque

country against the Army

of the North in 1938. (John

Prigent Collection)

The T-26 was a license-built

copy of the British Vickers 6-ton

export tank, but fitted with a

Soviet-designed turret armed

with a 45mm gun derived from

the German Rheinmetall 37mm

antitank gun. The crew was

three: a driver in the hull, and a

gunner and loader/commander

in the turret. This example is a

captured T-26 in service with

the 1st Batallón de Carros de

Combate de la Legion in 1938.

(NARA)

6

Britain had been at the forefront of tank development in World War I,


objective and was also essential in providing German industry with thetechnical lessons that would be needed for larger and more elaborate designs.The PzKpfw I was never designed to fight other tanks, since there had beenhardly any instances of tanks fighting other tanks during World War I. The PzKpfw I was another of the interwar tank types to see extensive combatin Spain.

Another influential tank in the interwar years was the Vickers 6-ton tank.This was a commercial design intended for export, and the British Armynever bought any significant number. It was sold to the Soviet Union, Poland,the United States, China, and several other countries. It inspired many WorldWar II tank designs, including the US Army’s M3 Stuart, the Italian M11/39and M13/40, and the Polish 7TP. Its most important evolution was the SovietT-26 light tank. As a commercial export product, several armament optionswere offered, including the Model A “trench clearer” fitted with two turrets,each with a light machine gun; the Model B “fire support” tank fitted witha single turret and short 47mm gun; and the Model C “tank destroyer,”which was configured like the Model A but had long 37mm antitank guns in the hull. The Soviet Union bought license production rights for the Vickersin 1930. Since the Red Army planned to deploy the T-26 for infantry supportthe twin-turret layout was selected, so that the tank could then engage twotargets simultaneously. Although tank-vs-tank fighting was not considered a major tactical concern, work began in 1932 on a T-26 tank destroyer fittedwith a single large turret armed with a 45mm antitank gun. An importantinnovation in this design was the incorporation of a coaxial machine gunwith the antitank gun, which permitted the crew to engage targets with

Many of the T-26s sold to

Spain were the latest 1937

production type, which

included a P-40-UM antiaircraft

machine gun mount for a

Degtaryev light machine-gun

on the right side of the turret

roof. The DT machine gun

mounted in the turret rear was

a feature added in 1935. This

is a captured Nationalist tank

with the 1st Batallón de Carros

de Combate de la Legion.

(NARA)

7


gunfire, machine-gun fire, or both. It is worth digressing a moment to explorethe origins of the gun selected for the T-26 as it helps illuminate some broadertactical trends in European weapons at the time.

The Soviet 45mm tank gun was a spin-off from another program: the Red Army’s effort to arm its infantry with a modern antitank gun. During thelate 1920s and early 1930s there was considerable debate about the idealweapon to equip the infantry to fight tanks. Many armies adopted an antitank rifle for small-unit defense and the Red Army did the same. A longer-range and more powerful weapon was sought for battalion andregimental defense. Some armies, such as Italy’s, opted for a dual-purpose47mm gun that could fire a worthwhile high-explosive round as well as anantitank projectile; other armies such as those of Britain and France preferreda dedicated antitank gun optimized for antitank projectiles. The Red Armypurchased the rights to the German Rheinmetall 37mm in 1930, and itentered small-scale production in 1931 as the 1-K 37mm Model 1930antitank gun. However, Red Army officers argued that it would be moreuseful as a “universal gun” if it could fire a better high-explosive projectile.The 37mm round was quite weak, with only a 20g high-explosive charge so it was scaled up to 45mm with double the high-explosive fill in theenlarged projectile. It entered production in 1932 as the 19-K 45mm Model1932 antitank gun.

In 1933 the 19-K was modified as the 20-K, which was essentially thesame weapon but adapted for use on armored vehicles. Tests of the weaponin an enlarged T-26 turret went smoothly, and senior Red Army commanderswere enthusiastic about such a design as a “universal infantry tank” ratherthan as a tank destroyer, since the combination of a dual-purpose 45mm gunand a coaxial machine gun allowed the tank to engage a wide variety ofenemy targets at much longer ranges than the existing twin-turreted T-26. As a result, production of the T-26 began to shift to the new single-turretversion in the summer of 1933. This version is erroneously called the T-26Bin many accounts. In fact, the Red Army was very parsimonious with officialdesignations, and official documents distinguish three types: the T-26dvukhbashenniy (twin-turret); the T-26 lineyniy (line); and the T-26 radiyniy(radio), with the later two types armed with the 45mm gun. This book willrefer to them by the terms used in recent Russian accounts by theirproduction year. The T-26 raised the stakes in the European arms race of the1930s, as would become clear in Spain.

ATHE PRE-WAR DINOSAURS

1. Carro de Artilleríe Schneider CA1, Madrid, 1936

In 1926, the Spanish Army adopted gray as the standard color for its vehicles, which were

sometimes nicknamed “Tiznado” as a result. The Schneiders had been put into reserve before

the war due to their poor mechanical state, but saw some combat use in the initial fighting in

1936, including the attack on Cuartel de la Montaña. Protected trucks and some tanks, such as

the Schneider here, were decorated with the names of the political militias that provided crews,

in this case the Unión General de Trabajadores and Unión de Hermanos Proletarios.

2. Trubia A4, Regimiento de Infantería Milán número 32, Oviedo, 1937

The three pre-series Trubia A-4 tanks were attached to an infantry regiment in the Oviedo region,

probably due to the proximity to the Trubia plant where they were manufactured. They belonged

to the Republican Army of the North during the fighting in Asturias in 1937, where they were

captured eventually by the Nationalists. Photos show them in a dark finish, which may have been

dark gray or olive drab, as shown here based on recent Spanish depictions.

8


1

4

2


TANKS IN SPAIN

Spain had been in the backwater of European military developments for morethan a century. It had a dozen Renault FT light tanks and six of the heavierSchneider CA1 tanks from France in the years after World War I. The RenaultFTs were dispatched to Morocco in 1921 to support the Spanish ForeignLegion (Tercio de Extranjeros) in its fight against the Rif rebellion. A young officer of the 1st Batallón (1a Bandera) of the legion, MajorFrancisco Franco, remarked, “Armored cars and tanks are well suited forthis war. We shall see if time proves me right.” In fact, the first tank actionon March 17, 1922, was discouraging. The tanks advanced in front of theinfantry due to their higher speed, but a number proved useless in combatwhen their machine guns jammed. Two tanks broke down and were leftbehind, only to be blown up by the Rif with dynamite. This combat debuthad several clear lessons. Tanks were not miracle weapons, even when usedagainst poorly armed rebels. Tanks could not hold ground on their ownwithout proper coordination with the infantry. Mechanical reliability issuesas much as tactical issues remained the bane of early tank operations. The Renaults were reinforced by the six Schneiders in 1923. The tanks sawsmall-scale use over the next few years, and the FT tanks took part in thebold amphibious landings on Alhucemas Bay in September 1925, a majorvictory in the pacification campaign. While the use of tanks in the Rif warattracted little attention in the outside world, it had considerable influence on ambitious young officers of the Foreign Legion like Franco, who wouldplay critical roles in the later civil war.

Following the Rif War, the tanks returned to Spain. The Moroccancampaign had excited enough interest to inspire tank manufacture in Spain.The Trubia tank was manufactured at the Fábrica Nacional de Trubia in 1925. It resembled an enlarged Renault FT but with three machine guns.After initial trials, the improved Carro Ligero Trubia A4 went into pre-seriesproduction with four examples built. Tanks were associated with the artillery,

The Spanish Army acquired six

French Schneider CA1 tanks in

the early 1920s, which were

used in the Rif War in Spanish

Morocco. The Republicans had

four in Madrid, including this

one, and the Nationalists had

the other two in Zaragoza.

(Author’s collection)

10


and after an abortive coup byartillery officers in 1926, theirprograms fell out of favor. Spainpurchased samples of other tanksin the 1920s, such as an ItalianFiat-3000A light tank in 1924,essentially an Italian copy of theRenault FT. During the AsturiasRebellion in 1934, the Trubiaplant converted five Landesatractors into improvised tanks,the Carro Armado Landesa, by constructing an armoredsuperstructure on the chassis. It was fitted with a single machinegun in the casemate. When thecivil war started in 1936,

Combate (LCC) número 1 stationed near Madrid, and Regimiento LCCnúmero 2, near Zaragoza.

Although Spanish tank production was meager, there was a continualinterest in the production and use of protegido camión (protected trucks).Unlike the more familiar armored car, these vehicles were for the most partbuilt using non-armor steel or iron plate, which offered limited protectionagainst small arms. Numerous types were built in small batches in the 1920sin Spain and Morocco, and they were used for convoy escort and othersecondary military tasks. Production of protected trucks accelerated in theearly 1930s due to the growing political unrest in Spain. With the abdicationof the king and the creation of the Second Republic in the summer of 1931,political violence reached fever pitch. The October 1934 revolt in Asturias ledto the construction of more than a dozen protected trucks. Various statepolice forces began ordering protected trucks for riot control, and a numberof political militias also constructed their own examples. The new Republicangovernment formed the Guardia de Asalto, a paramilitary riot-police forceequipped mainly with small arms, but a motorized section with armored cars

based near Madrid sided with

the Republic and was used in

some of the early actions of

the war including Sierra de

Guadarrama (July 1936), where

one of their Renault FT tanks is

seen derelict after the fighting.

(Oscar Bruña Royo)

The Bilbao armored car was the

only mass-produced armored

It was a simple design,

intended more for internal

security duties than battlefield

use. These two examples are in

Nationalist units in the 1938

The Regimiento LCC número 1most surviving tanks belonged to the Regimiento Ligero de Carros de

11

vehicle in Spain before the war.

fighting. (NARA)


Map of the battle zone

was also planned. To equip these units, the Sociedad Española deConstrucción Naval (SECN) developed the Camión Blindados Bilbao Modelo1932 armored car on the basis of imported Dodge K32 trucks. This was a lightly armored vehicle with a 7mm Hotchkiss machine gun in a simpleturret and at least 45 were completed. Some were built for the cavalry andserved with the Grupo de Autoametralladoras-Cañón of the cavalry divisionin Aranjuez near Madrid.

ORIGINS OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

While this book does not have the space to discuss the complex origins of the war in Spain, a basic summary is helpful to better appreciate the tankwarfare that took place. Following the end of the Spanish monarchy in 1931,Spain attempted to establish a parliamentary democracy, with little success.Lacking a democratic tradition, Spanish politics were bitterly polarized by the political extremes of right and left. The government in 1936 wascontrolled by the Popular Front, a left-wing alliance including liberal,socialist, trade-unionist, and communist parties. The left’s anti-clericalexcesses aggravated the more traditional elements of society and led to plansfor a military coup by the army, supported by various conservative,monarchist, and clerical parties.

The Spanish Army at the time was modest in size – about 100,000 troops,of which 30,000 belonged to the Army of Africa in Spanish Morocco. Themetropolitan army was a poorly trained and poorly led conscript force, withmost ambitious officers serving in the colonies. It was so ineffective that thegovernment had been forced to create paramilitary security units to quell the political violence that wracked Spain through the 1930s. The army in Morocco included most of the professional units, with a core of experiencedcolonial troops, as well as the battle-hardened Legion. Not surprisingly,

12


A pair of CV 3/33 tankettes

of the Italian CTV’s

Raggruppamento Carristi

moving forward in 1938. This

is the earlier version of the

tankette and not as widely seen

in Spain as the CV 3/35. (NARA)

the muscle of the rebel movement against the Popular Front government camefrom the Army of Africa. The nominal head of the coup forces was GeneralJosé Sanjurjo, the “Lion of the Rif,” who had commanded the bold Alhucemasamphibious landings in 1925. The coup was launched on July 18, 1936,starting in Spanish Morocco, after which the colonial units began their moveto the Spanish mainland. The rank and file of the Spanish Navy proved lessenthusiastic to the rebel cause than the Army of Africa, and when instructionswere sent to dispatch the navy’s warships to Morocco to lift the army to Spain,the lower ranks refused and sided with the Republic. In an act that wouldpresage the later Great Power involvement in the conflict, on July 22 Hitleragreed to send Junker Ju-52 transports to Morocco to help lift Franco’s forcesinto Spain. By the end of July the civil war was in full swing, with Nationalistrebels in control of much of western and northern Spain.

Although the rebels started the war with serious numerical disadvantages,they enjoyed the advantage of unity and a disciplined military force. Besidesthe 30,000 troops of the Army of Africa, about half of the metropolitan armyrallied to their side, along with most of the officers. Of the 65,000paramilitary troops, more than half sided with the Nationalists, including a majority of the Carabineros and Civil Guard. There was also greaterpolitical unity between the various political factions backing the Nationalistrebels, including conservative, royalist, and Catholic parties.

The Republican side controlled about two-thirds of Spanish territory,including most of the major cities and industry. The navy sided with theRepublic as did the merchant marine, which controlled the vital export trade.The government also controlled the gold reserve, which was essential forpurchasing arms from abroad. In spite of these advantages, the Republic wasbeset by enormous military problems. It eventually formed the EjércitoPopular Republicano (EPR: People’s Republican Army) based on thebedraggled remnants of the army and security forces that had remained loyal,combined with various political militias. These units were enthusiastic butpoorly led and completely untrained. The Republican forces were an uneasycoalition of fractious leftist parties that were often at each other’s throats;furthermore, the alliance also contained separatist regions such as the Basquecountry and Catalonia.

Neither Britain nor France wantedto be dragged into the conflict, andpromoted a non-intervention policy.While this was honored by some of the major powers, Italy andGermany quickly aligned themselveswith the Nationalists, while the SovietUnion aligned with the Republicans.These three nations would becomethe main source of advanced weaponsand “volunteer” troops during theensuing conflict. The Republicancause became a political rallyingpoint of the trade-unionist and leftistparties around Europe, and led to thecreation of the International Brigades,made up of foreign volunteers.

13


A Spanish crew prepares a T-26

Model 1933. This is a fairly early

production example from the

original batches with the

Vickers-pattern road wheels.

(Patton Museum)

INITIAL BATTLES FOR MADRID

The small numbers of armored vehicles available in Spain in 1936 meant thatneither side had a significant tank force at the beginning of hostilities. The Republicans inherited the greater share of armored vehicles, but thisoffered little advantage. The old Renault and Schneider tanks were notmechanically reliable, nor were the small numbers of Spanish-built tanks suchas the Trubia. The Bilbao armored cars, while relatively numerous, were essentially road-bound and poorly armed. The Regimiento de Carrosnúmero 1 in Madrid stayed on the Republican side, while Regimiento número2 in Zaragoza sided with the Nationalists.

The outbreak of the war led to the construction of hundreds of protectedtrucks, especially by Republican militias in the industrial areas. In total,factories under Republican control built at least 400 protected trucks; onedocument lists no fewer than 159 constructed in Catalonia alone in 1936–37.These were a mixed blessing. Although they were sometimes used with daringand boldness, they were often poorly designed and prone to breakdown. The truck chassis were overburdened by the steel or iron plate that led toengine overheating and automotive collapse; the narrow tires combined withthe excessive weight meant that the protected trucks had very high groundpressure, and so could not be used off the road except on exceptionally hardand flat terrain; they were top-heavy and prone to overturning. In later

14

Spanish Armored Forces, Summer 1936

Type Republican Nationalist

Schneider CA1 4 2

Renault FT 9 6

Fiat-3000A 1 0

Trubia 1 3

Landesa 2 0

Bilbao 41 5


years, true armored cars manufactured with armor plate were built, and theseare detailed later.

The first batch of new tanks to arrive in August 1936 came from Italy,consisting of a platoon of five CV 3/35 tankettes and crew. They weredispatched to the port of Vigo in Galicia, in northwestern Spain, and putunder the control of the Nationalist Army of the North. Since the Italiangovernment initially forbade Italian troops from participating in combat, the Italian tankers trained Spanish volunteers. These tankettes took part in theoccupation of San Sebastián but saw no actual fighting. A second Italiancontingent arrived on September 29, consisting of a company of ten tanketteswith three flame-thrower tankettes. Captain Oreste Fortuna and his troopsvolunteered to join the Tercio in order to see combat and were sent to theMadrid front. They first saw combat on October 21, 1936, at Navalcarneronear Madrid, where their unexpected appearance rattled the Republicandefenders and led to a rout. The company was subsequently honored as theCompañía artillería-legionaria “Navalcarnero.”

While the Italian tankers were seeing their combat debut in the outskirtsof Madrid, the first shipment of tanks had arrived from the Soviet Union at Cartagena on October 12, 1936. This included 50 T-26 light tanks, someBA-3 armored cars, and 51 “volunteer” tank specialists. The Sovietgovernment did not plan to provide enough crews for the tanks sent to Spain,but rather to train Spanish personnel to operate them. Archena became themain training and technical center for the Republican tank force for most of the war and was originally headed by Kombrig (Brigadier) Semyon M.Krivoshein. In spite of the original plans to restrict the Soviet tankers to training duties, the situation of the Republican forces around Madrid wasso desperate in late October that Moscow authorized Krivoshein to deploysome ad hoc combat formations. At least three small groups were dispatched to the Madrid front, one headed by Komrot (Captain) A. Novak, with six BA-3 armored cars and seven T-26 tanks, a Spanish tank platoon under Major P. Villakansas, and a reinforced company-sized formation underKombat (Major) Paul Arman. The two first groups went into action on thenight of October 27, 1936, with little impact.

The first significant action by the Republican tank force involved Arman’spartially formed 1st Tank Battalion. Arman had selected the best Soviet crews,

A column of T-26 Model 1933

tanks from Krivoshein’s

Aranjuez Group during the

defense of Madrid in 1936.

(Patton Museum)

15


mixed with some of the new Spanish crews, for a total of 34 Soviet tankers and11 Spanish crewmen. Arman is reported to have proclaimed, “The situationis not so hopeless. They have 15,000 soldiers, we have 15 tanks, so thestrengths are equal!” On the morning of October 29, 1936, Arman’s companysupported an attack by two Republican infantry brigades against Italian andSpanish Nationalist units in the village of Seseña, on the southern approachesto Madrid. This attack displayed the problems and potential of the tacticalemployment of tanks in the Spanish conditions.

The Spanish infantry had no training to operate with tanks, and Armanhad no patience to wait for them. Of his 15 tanks, three were disabled almostimmediately by mines on the road to the town, a novel experience as antitank mines had been a relative rarity in World War I. Pressing ahead,Arman bluffed his way past a battery of Nationalist field guns in the westernoutskirts of Seseña and his forces then attacked the main Nationalist positionsin the town itself. One of his tanks was destroyed in the street fighting whenstruck by a flaming bottle of gasoline. This was the first time Molotovcocktails had been used in combat in Spain and had been prompted by thedebut of the other Soviet armored units a few days before. After shooting up the Nationalist forces in the village, Arman led his company out of towneastward in an attempt to strike at the rear of the Nationalist forces. Afteroverrunning a field-gun battery, the T-26 tanks encountered three CV 3/35tankettes of the Italian Compañía Navalcarnero. Two tankettes were armedonly with machine guns and one with a flame-thrower, and theircounterattack against Arman’s force was doomed. The flame-tankette,commanded by P. Baresi, attempted to approach close enough to the Soviettanks to use its flame-thrower, but was blasted with gunfire. Another tankettewas pushed into a ditch and overturned by a much larger T-26 tank.

During the raid Arman's group lost three tanks to Molotov cocktails andartillery fire, with three more damaged; and it suffered casualties of fourSoviet and four Spanish tankers killed, and six wounded. Arman claimed thathis group had destroyed two infantry battalions and two cavalry squadrons,ten 75mm field guns, two tankettes, 20–30 trucks, 5–8 automobiles, andsome tank transporters, and captured two field guns. Although Arman’s raidwas an important psychological boost for the harried Republican forces, the Republican attack was a failure due to the inability of the infantry to fighttheir way into the town, lacking the promised tank support. The poorcoordination of tank and infantry at Seseña would prove typical of theSpanish experience. On the Nationalist side, the Italian tankettes continuedto see combat action for the next several weeks, but were withdrawn from thefront in late November after four were lost. After several more days’ fightingon the outskirts of Madrid, the scattered Republican tank formations wereunited by Kombrig Krivoshein to form the Aranjuez Group, though inpractice the unit’s companies were dispersed to support various Republicanbrigades, including the fighting in Madrid itself in December 1936. The

BT-26 MODEL 1933, ARANJUEZ GROUP, MADRID, NOVEMBER 1936

Krivoshein’s Republican battalion at the time of the Madrid fighting had extremely simple

markings, usually a two-digit tactical number painted on the hull front, either side of the turret,

and sometimes on the hull rear. This particular example was more colorfully marked than most,

with slogans on the turret and hull side: “Viva el Ejercito del Centro” (Long live the Army of the

Center) and “Viva Madrid.” The communist hammer-sickle was sometimes applied to Republican

tanks. The finish is the usual pre-war Soviet-camouflage dark green.

16



Spanish Renault FT tanks were consolidated in a company under D. Pogodinto support Krivoshein’s tanks during the Madrid fighting.

The Republic rebuffed Franco’s attack on Madrid and there was almostuniversal praise for the performance of Krivoshein’s scattered tank units. TheSoviet advisory team in Madrid sent this assessment to the Kremlin: “Arman’stanks group created real miracles. It is possible to say with completeassurance that if the fighter group and Arman’s tanks would not have beenpresent during the first period of the defense of Madrid, the defense of the citywould have been an exceptionally catastrophic situation. It is impossible to adequately describe the heroism of the tankers; they prevented the retreatof the infantry; they were always in the vanguard; they fought single-handedlywith enemy gun batteries, and they demolished the battle plans of theopponent. They always took best advantage of the tanks in infringement of all technical and authorized norms and never refused or questioned ordersto carry out a task. Tanks fought all day long; returned to the support areaat night to repair the vehicles and during the morning returned to the fight.”

By mid-December 1936, Krivoshein’s small armored force was largelyspent, due not only to battlefield casualties, but also to the mechanicalexhaustion of the tanks themselves. Soviet tanks of the 1930s were not veryrobust; the T-26 light tank required intermediate overhaul at districtworkshops after 150 engine hours, and factory overhaul after 600 hours.Tracks and track pins began to wear out after 800km of travel; side clutchesbecame worn; and the powertrain was gradually knocked out of alignment from hard cross-country travel. In the desperate fighting during the defense of Madrid, Arman’s company had accumulated over 800 operating hours by mid-December, far beyond the regulations, leavingmany of its tanks inoperable. Krivoshein’s other units were not in much bettershape, as the inexperienced Spanish crews were unable to do field repairs,and their unfamiliarity with tank driving led to high rates of clutch and powertrain failures. There were no established maintenance facilities in the Madrid area, and spare parts were almost nonexistent. WhileKrivoshein’s tank force had succeeded in its immediate mission of bolstering

Italian tankers inspect a

Republican T-26 knocked out

during the fighting. The small

Italian CV 3/35 was no match

for the larger and much better-

armed Soviet tank. (Patton

Museum)

18


the Republican forces during thedefense of Madrid, this was noway to operate a tank force forprolonged campaigns.

It became clear from the initialfighting that tank units could notbe employed nonstop, day andnight like infantry, but had to be carefully husbanded for onlythe most important missions. Theexperience with the new Spanishtank crews was discouraging, and the Red Army practice ofassigning a junior crewman todriving duties usually left them in

breakdown rates, and forced Krivoshein’s unit to reorganize crew tasks, with Russian tank commanders shifted to the driver’s position in the hope of keeping the tanks operable. However, this adversely affected the combatcapabilities of the tanks, since the more experienced Soviet tanker was unable to command the tank and direct the gunner from the isolation of thedriver’s station.

Cooperation between the tanks and the infantry was almost uniformlyabysmal. There was no training by the tanks and infantry in cooperativetactics before missions, and the tank companies seldom worked with the sameinfantry unit for more than a few days, so no experience was accumulated.The Republicans could not afford to pull the tank companies out of the linefor such training, and Krivoshein’s units were reluctant to expend preciousengine hours drilling with the Spanish infantry. Krivoshein and Arman wereordered back to Moscow to brief senior Red Army leaders in January 1937.

The violent fighting around Madrid in the autumn of 1936 convinced mostof the interventionist governments to drop the fig leaf of “volunteer” troops.

in Spain were supported by

smaller numbers of the Lancia

1ZM armored cars in a

Squadriglia Autoblindo. This

was a modernized version of

an armored car originally built

during World War I. (NARA)

Drohne was a training

establishment and the German

tank crews saw very little tank

combat. Here, German crews

instruct a Spanish soldier on a

PzKpfw I Ausf B. (John Prigent

Collection)

19

Von Thoma’s Panzergruppe

the hands of inexperienced Spanish crewmen. This led to abnormally high The Italian tankette companies


On December 13, 1936, Mussolini agreed to send entire Italian units to fightin Spain, eventually forming the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV: The Corpsof Volunteer Troops). The Italian armored contingent expanded continuallyas a result. A second tankette company arrived in November 1936, a squadronof eight Lancia 1ZM armored cars in late December 1936, and two moretankette companies in January 1937. The expanded tankette force formed theBattaglione Carri d’Assalto per Oltre Mare Spagna (OMS: Spanish OverseasTank Battalion). In February 1937 this battalion was incorporated into thelarger Raggruppamento Reparti Specializzati (RRS: Specialist Unit Group),which also included motorized artillery, motorized infantry, and an armored-car company. The creation of the RRS was clear evidence of the subordinaterole that tankettes played in the CTV, being lumped together with othertechnical supporting arms. There was little effort made to create a fast mobileforce during the first year of the fighting. The battalion was split into twoweak battalions later in 1937, each with only two companies. This was typicalof the Spanish experience, with the CTV dispersing its limited tank supportdue to widespread demand on scattered fronts.

Germany was the third major power to intervene and deployed thesmallest tank contingent, largely overshadowed by its aviation counterpart,the Legion Condor. The German ground element was codenamed GruppeImker (beekeeper) and included a variety of training and support unitsincluding Panzergruppe Drohne (drone) headed by the commander of II./Panzer Regiment.4, Oberstleutnant Wilhelm von Thoma. The initialshipment to Spain included 41 PzKpfw I Ausf A. The Panzergruppe arrivedin Seville in October 1936 and was followed by additional personnel and 21 of the improved PzKpfw I Ausf B tanks. Panzergruppe Drohne set up itsbase in Cubas de la Sagra in the Madrid area; its role was training, notcombat. The school was a battalion in size, with three tank companies andassociated support units; it also contained an antitank element that eventuallyraised ten antitank gun companies armed with the Rheinmetall 37mm PaK 36. The Spanish Regimiento de Infantería Argel número 37 led byComandante de Infantería D. José Pujales Carrasco was converted by theirGerman trainers into the 1st Batallón de Carros de Combate, organized intothree companies each with 16 tanks. These companies were eventuallydubbed “Negrillos” (Blacks) to distinguish them from the “Rusas” (Russians)using captured Soviet T-26 tanks. The name stemmed either from the darkgray paint of the German tanks or the black berets of the German crews.

C1. CV 3/35, RAGGRUPPAMENTO CARRISTI, 1938

Although some of the older CV 3/33 tankettes appear to have arrived in a scheme of brick red

with small dark green splotches (rosso ruggine, verde scurro) the majority of the tankettes

appeared in standard army gray green (grigio verde). This camouflage scheme sometimes was

amplified with blotches of dark brown, as seen on this tankette. The regimental markings

switched from the RRS to the Raggruppamento Carristi (RC) with a set of simple white geometric

symbols being adopted for the four companies, with the individual tank number painted inside

the symbol. In this case it identifies this vehicle as the 6th tank of 1st Company. The inset drawing

shows typical examples for the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 3rd companies (clockwise from top left).

2. CV 3/35-BREDA, RAGGRUPPAMENTO CARRISTI, 1938

This is the sole example of the CV 3/35 tankette that was upgraded with the Breda 20mm M35

cannon. The rhomboid side markings are those used by the independent company of the RC,

which contained the regiment’s flame-thrower tanks and other specialized types.

20


2

1


PzKpfw I Ausf B, 4 Befehlswagen I command tanks and one turretlesstraining tank. Only a handful of German tankers saw regular combat action.The PzKpfw I proved to be far more robust and durable automotively thanthe T-26 and 93 remained in service at war’s end.

The Nationalist “Negrillos” tank companies were gradually deployed intocombat during the fighting around Madrid starting in early November 1936,usually in company strength to support various infantry units. They had theirfirst encounter with T-26 tanks during the fighting around the CiudadUniversitaria. Losses in the November fighting were significant, with six tanksdestroyed and 16 damaged. Although the panzers were used mainly forinfantry support, they continued to bump into Republican T-26 tank and BA-3 armored-car units. During the fighting around Pozuelo in December1936 and January 1937, over a dozen PzKpfw I tanks were knocked outfighting Soviet armored vehicles. The PzKpfw I could fire the special SmKH armor-piercing machine-gun round, but this could penetrate the T-26 only at ranges of about 120–150m. Once the Republican crews realized this theyavoided close-range combat with the German tanks, and stood off wheretheir 45mm guns were still effective; the 45mm gun on the T-26 couldpenetrate the PzKpfw I at ranges up to 1km. The Germans responded bydeploying five 37mm PaK 36 towed antitank guns in each Spanish tank

Panzergruppe Drohne

converted a single PzKpfw I

Ausf A into a flame-thrower

tank by mounting a small

man-portable flame-thrower

in place of one of the machine

guns. (NARA)

A column of PzKpfw I Ausf A

tanks of the Nationalist 1st

Batallón de Carros de Combate

moves forward with the crew

riding outside. (John Prigent

Collection)

Germany eventually supplied a total of 122 tanks: 96 PzKpfw I Ausf A, 21

22


company. On December 6, 1936 VonThoma sent back an urgent report toBerlin urging that gun-armed tanks bedeployed to Spain as quickly aspossible, armed at least with the20mm KwK30 gun already in use onGerman armored cars.

As the Spanish Civil Warintensified, Stalin agreed to reinforcethe Spanish contingent. A secondwave of about 200 Soviet tank crewsand tank specialists arrived onNovember 26, 1936, commanded byKombrig D. G. Pavlov. The expansionpermitted the formation of the 1aBrigada Blindada (1st ArmoredBrigade). Pavlov’s brigade in Spainwas only about a third the size of a normal Red Army light-tank brigade, with a nominal table of organizationand equipment of 96 tanks, and an actual strength through most of the winterand spring fighting of seldom more than 60 tanks. As in the case ofKrivoshein’s units, there were not nearly enough Soviet tankers to man thisunit, and as a result Spanish crews had to be used. In total, some 351 Soviettankers served in Spain during the course of the war but, from available unitrecords, the total at any one time was never more than 160 men, and usuallynot more than 100 tankers. Pavlov’s new brigade absorbed the survivingremnants of Krivoshein’s tank units, which constituted its 1st Tank Battalion.

Pavlov's brigade was prematurely pressed into action in early January1937 with only 47 tanks on hand. The mission was to support thecounteroffensive of the 12th and 14th International Brigades towardsMajadahonda on January 11, 1937, on Madrid's western front. In contrast to the previous experience with the Spanish units, the cooperation with theInternational Brigade infantry was somewhat more successful. The tankswere very useful in overcoming the Nationalist defensive line but once theinitial defensive lines were broken by the tanks and infantry, the infantry wasunable to keep up with the tanks and became separated. The tanks couldhave penetrated the Nationalist lines more deeply but, as Arman’s initial raidhad shown, breakthroughs without accompanying infantry were futile. Thescourge of the Republican tank force was the new German 37mm PaK 36antitank gun; in three days of fighting, the unit lost five tanks.

The Majadahonda offensive soon ended when the Nationalist forcesswitched the focus of their assault on Madrid to the southeastern front alongthe Jarama River. Pavlov’s brigade was broken up into small company-sizeddetachments to reinforce the Republican lines. As the French had found in World War I, the presence of tanks provided a strong psychologicalreinforcement to demoralized infantry, and there was great demand for tanksupport across the Madrid front. Even after the losses suffered in recentweeks, the brigade’s strength had increased to 60 tanks as more crews becameavailable and more tanks repaired. The Republican forces went over to theoffensive, supported by Pavlov’s scattered units. The Nationalist forcesaround Madrid had numerical tank superiority in this campaign, with about70 tanks, but the T-26 was clearly superior to the German and Italian types.

Germany sent four of these

Befehlswagen I command tanks

to Spain, which were a version

of the PzKpfw I Ausf B but with

a fixed superstructure and

additional radio equipment.

They were issued on a scale of

one per company plus one in

the battalion headquarters. The

prominent St Andrew’s Cross

painted on the roof was an air

identity mark common on

Nationalist tanks to prevent

strafing by friendly aircraft.

(NARA)

23


24

T-26 MODEL 1937, BANDERA DE CARROS DE COMBATE DE LA LEGION, CUBAS DE LA SAGRA, 1938D

Type T-26 tank Model 1937 with radio

(Radiyniy tank T-26 vypusk 1937 goda)

Crew 3: driver, gunner, loader

Loaded weight 9.75 metric tons

Unloaded weight 8.9 metric tons

Length 4.62m

Width 2.44m

Height 2.24m

Ground clearance 0.38m

Road speed 30 km/h

Avg. cross-country speed 10 km/h

Main gun 20-K 45mm tank gun with

semi-automatic breech

Main gun ammunition 107 rounds (111

rounds in tank without radio)

Secondary armament DT 7.62mm coaxial

machine gun+ DT on P-40M AA mount

on turret

Ammunition 3,024 rounds (48 drums): 2,772

in tank without radio

Engine GAZ 4-cylinder, 93 hp

Range 220–240 km on roads, 130–140 km

cross-country

Radio 71-TK-1 with clothesline antenna on

early tanks; 71-TK-3 with whip antenna

on later tanks

Armor 15mm sides, 6–10mm top

2

3

1

4

5

6

25

26

27

1. Engine air intake

2. GAZ 4-cylinder engine

3. Radiator

4. Radiator air intake with armored grills

5. Rear turret DT 7.62mm machine gun

6. Left turret side 45mm ammunition stowage

7. 20-K 45mm tank gun with semi-automatic breech

8. Gunner's episcope

9. Gunner's telescopic sight

10. Loader's hatch with P-40M anti-aircraft machine gun mount

11. DT 7.62mm machine gun on P-40M mount

12. Turret ventilator cover

13. Loader's periscopic sight

14. Co-axial DT 7.62mm machine gun

15. Driver's controls

16. Transmission

17. Drive sprocket

18. Turret pistol port (loader's side)

19. Suspension bogie

20. Driver's seat

21. Loader's 45mm ammunition stowage

22. DT machine gun ammunition stowage bin on floor

23. Loader's seat

24. Drive train between engine and transmission

25. Idler wheel

26. Fuel tank

27. Muffler

Key

Technical data


7

8

9

10

11

1213

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24


A Befehlswagen I command

tank sometime after February

1938. when Franco attached

the battalion to the Tercio; the

Legion’s Escudo marking can

be seen on the superstructure

above the driver’s open visor.

The provision of dedicated

radio vehicles was due to the

Wehrmacht’s prescient view

that radio communications

were essential in coordinating

modern mobile operations.

(John Prigent Collection)

The Soviet advisers’ report to Moscow on the Jarama operation was notfavorable. The fighting cost the brigade 34 tanks, nearly 70 percent of theforce committed, mainly to Nationalist antitank guns. Soviet artilleryspecialist Komkor (General) G. I. Kulik sarcastically remarked that the antitank gun could sweep the battlefield of tanks the same way that machineguns swept it of infantry.

In March the front shifted yet again, this time to the north of Madrid, asan Italian offensive began at Guadalajara. Two of the CTV divisions had thesupport of two tankette companies each. Once again, Pavlov’s tanks ralliedto save the day. On March 13, 1937, one of the few tank-vs-tank skirmishestook place when the Republican T-26 light tanks shot up a company of ItalianCV 3/35 tankettes near Trijueque, destroying five and seriously damagingtwo more. There were many small tank encounters, and the Italian tankerssoon learned to fear contact with the Republican rearguards defended by T-26 tanks. When the Italian CTV offensive was finally exhausted theRepublicans went over to the offensive, with Pavlov's tanks in the lead. On March 18, three Republican infantry brigades with tank support routedthe lead Italian units and seized the town of Brihuega. By the end of the dayPavlov’s force had suffered so many casualties, to both enemy fire andmechanical problems, that of its original 60 tanks at the beginning of theGuadalajara fighting it was able to muster only nine tanks to chase the retreating Italians. The Republicans were unable to exploit their victory,achieved in no small measure due to the tank support. Tank losses were lowerthan in earlier campaigns: 28 tanks or about 40 percent of the force in threeweeks of fighting.

Pavlov’s force received a major infusion of new equipment and manpowerin March 1937 with the arrival by sea of 100 new T-26 tanks. This was nearlyas many tanks as had been supplied since the beginning of the Sovietintervention. The main problem was to train enough Spanish crewmen to equip them. The unfavorable view held by many Soviet officers of theSpanish tank crew led to plans to recruit tankers from the more highly-regarded International Brigades. Since there were limits on the amount of

26


training that could be undertaken in Spain, these foreign volunteers were sentto the Soviet tank school in Gorky. Due to the influx of new tanks in thespring of 1937, it was possible to increase the number of tank battalions inSpain from three to four. These new units, and the demands from other frontsfor armor support, led to the decision to organize three additional armoredbrigades in the spring and summer of 1937. Unlike the 1st Armored Brigade,these later brigades had only a single tank battalion, plus two battalions of locally manufactured armored cars. Manned by Spanish personnel, theydid not have the mobility or firepower of the 1st Armored Brigade and werenot ready until late in 1937.

By the time of the Brunete offensive, the 1st Armored Brigade had filledout its three tank battalions, and Republican tank strength was 129 T-26tanks plus 43 BA-3 and FAI armored cars. Under the plan for the offensive,the 1st and 4th battalions with 70 tanks and 20 armored cars would supportthe main assault by the 5th and 18th corps (one tank battalion per corps),while the 2nd Battalion with 30 tanks and 10 armored cars would supportthe separate offensive by the 2-bis Corps southeast of Madrid. The Bruneteoffensive was intended to relieve Madrid, enveloping the Nationalist forces

An interesting photo of a

PzKpfw I of the 3a Compañía

of the Nationalist1st Batallón

de Carros de Combate with its

distinctive emblem, a skull and

crossbones, probably inspired

by widespread use of this

symbol by the German

Panzergruppe Drohne. (John

Prigent Collection)

27

Soviet Tank Shipments to Spain

Date of Arrival Ship Quantity Type

Oct 12, 1936 Komsomol 50 T-26 light tank

Nov 25, 1936 Cabo Palos 37 T-26 light tank

Nov 30, 1936 Marc Caribo 19 T-26 light tank

Mar 6, 1937 Cabo Santo Tomas 60 T-26 light tank

Mar 8, 1937 Darro 40 T-26 light tank

May 7, 1937 Cabo Palos 50 T-26 light tank

Aug 10, 1937 Cabo San Agustin 50 BT-5 fast tank

Mar 13, 1938 Gravelines 25 T-26 light tank


on the approaches to the city. The attack by the 18th Corps on Villanueva dela Cañada on July 6 began badly. The tank battalion advanced across an openfield with the infantry from the 34th Division following behind, but the tankswere stopped about 500–600m from the town by two well-concealedantitank guns and two field guns. Four more attacks failed to overcomeresistance in the town; one of the German 37mm guns had been mounted in a church steeple and was credited with a dozen tanks. The town was finallytaken by the 15th Division, but the corps failed to reach its objectives duringthe first day of fighting. Although the 5th Corps made better progress, it toofailed its main objectives. Over the next few days, the tanks were used to support the Republican infantry in a series of small local attacks, whichlargely failed to dislodge the reinforced Nationalist positions. Even aftercommitting its reserve tank battalion, by July 11, 1937, the 1st ArmoredBrigade in the Brunete sector was reduced in strength to only 38 tanks. On July 18, the Nationalists shifted to the offensive against the exhaustedand demoralized Republican forces. They proved no more able to dislodgethe Republicans, and the campaign ended in stalemate.

Brunete attracted far more attention by Western military analysts thanmost other tank engagements in Spain during the war due to extensive presscoverage. The inability of the tanks to advance in the face of enemy antitankguns was cited by many as evidence of the failure of the tank to restoremobility to warfare. Even noted British theorist B. H. Liddell Hart began to have his doubts in view of the Spanish experience. Yet, to other observers,the tanks had been poorly employed, and there was skepticism whether manylessons could be learned from the Spanish experience. British armor advocateMajor-General J. F. C. Fuller remarked: “Battles are not won by clichés orLiddell-Hartisms,” and he dismissed most of the press remarks about armor,attributing the tanks’ poor performance to the abysmal tactics employed in Spain. Russian assessments of the lessons of the Brunete campaign paidlittle attention to the tank operations and focused instead on the poor quality of the Republican infantry, its continued inability to cooperate effectivelywith either tanks or artillery, and the inflexibility of the artillery in assistingin offensive operations. It was also pointed out that the main attack sectors

A PzKpfw I Ausf A of the


Combate prior to its

attachment to the Tercio in

1938. This shows the early

markings style of this unit, with

the Nationalist tricolor flag

insignia extending along the

whole front plate; later it was

reduced in size to a smaller

rectangle. Some of these tanks

had a St Andrew’s Cross

painted on the hull side on a

white rectangle, but this was

overpainted on this tank. (John

Prigent Collection)

28


The Carro Trubia-Naval was

the only tank produced in any

significant number in Spain

during the war. It was

sometimes called the “Basque

Tank” because of its

manufacture in Bilbao. The

ten tanks served with the 1o

Sección de la Compañía de

Carros Orugas, part of one of

the battalions serving in the

Republican Army of the North.

(Patton Museum)

had an unusually high density of antitank guns and artillery, 26.6 guns perkilometer compared to an average of 13.8 guns per kilometer on the front asa whole.

NATIONALIST EXPANSION

Following the Brunete campaign, Franco shifted the focus of the Nationalistattack from the stiffly defended Madrid region to the isolated Asturias andBasque regions in the north. Following the Guadalajara debacle, the ItalianCTV was shifted to the Asturias front along with the RRS and its fourtankette companies. Curiously enough, this was a sector where Republicantanks other than the Soviet types were predominant, including Renault FTtanks. This industrial region was the center of Republican tank-buildingefforts. Fábrica de Trubia designed another improvised tank based on theLandesa artillery tractor. About ten were converted by Constructora Navalde Sestao and so the tank was known as the Trubia-Naval. The Renaultsserving with the Army of the North included some tanks originally acquiredfrom France, along with more recent acquisitions from Poland. Althoughthere was no ideological affinity between the Polish and Spanishgovernments, Warsaw decided to sell off a great deal of old weaponry to Spain to help fund its own military modernization effort. Two shipmentstotaling 32 Renault FT tanks were delivered to Alicante on the Mediterranean

29

Republican T-26 Tank Casualties in Spain October 1936–August 1937

Campaign Date Tanks participating Destroyed tanks Disabled tanks Total casualties

Madrid Oct 26–28, 1936Nov 28, 1936

87 16 (18.3%) 36 (41.4%) 52 (59.7%)

Jarama Feb 5–27, 1937 47 14 (29.8%) 20 (42.6%) 34 (72.4%)

Guadalajara Mar 9–22, 1937 72 7 (9.7%) 21 (29.2%) 28 (38.9%)

Casa del Campo May 5–12, 1937 84 10 (11.9%) 13 (15.5%) 23 (27.3%)

Brunete Jul 6–28, 1937 132 21 (15.9%) 26 (19.7%) 47 (35.5%)

Total 422 68 (16.1%) 116 (27.4%) 184 (43.6%)


on November 24, 1936, and at Santander in the north on March 3, 1937. The two Republican corps of the Army of the North each had a tankbattalion. The defeat of the Army of the North in August/September 1937 ledto a sudden windfall of captured tanks for the Nationalists, including 13 Renault FT and 5 Trubia tanks; Italian losses were seven tankettes and an armored car.

The firepower superiority of the Republican T-26 during the spring andsummer fighting in 1937 was painfully apparent to the Nationalist tankforces and, with no hope of satisfactory tanks from Italy and Germany, localinitiatives were undertaken. The Italian Breda 20mm Modelo 1935antiaircraft gun was adapted as a tank weapon since it could penetrate 40mmof armor at a range of 250m, more than adequate against the 15mm armorof the T-26. Conversions of the PzKpfw I Ausf A took place at the Fábrica deArmas in Seville in the summer of 1937, and a total of four were completed.The turret was extended upwards to accommodate the larger gun. TheGermans were extremely unhappy about the conversion, calling them “death

The PzKpfw I was poorly suited

to tank fighting due to its

machine-gun armament. Four

tanks were up-armed with a

Breda 20mm cannon in an

enlarged turret as seen on the

tank in the background here.

The PzKpfw I Ausf B in the

foreground is a company

command tank, identifiable by

the M painted on the diamond

insignia on the hull front.

(NARA)

A rare glimpse of one of the

four PzKpfw I Ausf A up-armed

by the addition of a Breda M35

20mm cannon. These were

allotted on a scale of one per

company to provide the units

with some organic antitank

capability in the event a T-26

was encountered. (John

Prigent Collection)

30


tank battalion had accumulated

enough intact T-26 tanks to

deploy one in each PzKpfw I

platoon, and a platoon in each

company. These tanks are from

the 6th Company, 2nd Batallón

de Carros de Combate de la

Legion. (NARA)

captured tanks by the

Nationalists led to efforts to

clearly mark the T-26 with

prominent insignia. This was

usually a tricolor band of

red/yellow/red on the turret

Legion T-26 Model 1937 tank

in 1938.

gunner vulnerable to small-arms fire. In the event, further conversions werehalted as by this time enough Republican T-26 tanks had been captured tosupplement the PzKpfw I. However, the Italian CTV still saw a need for asimilar upgrade to give their tankette units more firepower. A single CV 3/35was converted with the same gun and in August 1937, Nationalistheadquarters authorized the conversion of 40 tankettes with the Bredacannon. However none were completed beyond the prototype.

By October 1937, the Nationalist forces had captured ten intact T-26sand many more damaged examples that could be cannibalized for parts.These were turned over to Von Thoma’s training center for incorporationinto the Nationalist units. Eventually there were enough intact T-26s capturedthat each PzKpfw I company had a single T-26 for fire support and separate

The widespread use of

31

By late 1937, the Nationalisttanks” due to an opening in the turret front for the gun sight, which made the

front and rear, as seen on this


The troops of Panzergruppe

Drohne stand at attention at

their base at Cubas de la Sagra

in front of some captured T-26

that they refurbished for the


Combate de la Legion. As can

be seen, some have the early

form of air identification mark

on their turret roof, a white St

Andrew’s Cross on a black

background, while the tank in

the foreground has the more

common black cross on a

white background, which was

found to be more visible from

the air. (NARA)

Combate was organized into two tactical groups, each with two companiesof PzKpfw I and one company of T-26 tanks, for a total of six companies.Most of the captured Renault and Trubia tanks were rebuilt in Seville butwere of such dubious utility that they were relegated mostly to training. In order to raise the prestige of the tank battalion, in February 1938 Francoassigned it to the Legion as the Bandera de Carros de Combate de la Legion,under the command of the 2o Tercio de la Legion. Under this configuration,the two tactical groups were renamed as battalions but the unit had the samestrength of six companies.

The Italian RRS was reorganized in October 1937 as theRaggruppamento Carristi (RC), consisting of two weak battalions, each withtwo tankette companies, and a motorized infantry battalion with two sectionsof Italian 47mm and German 37mm antitank guns. The intention was to reorient the tankette force from an infantry support arm to a mobile force.The Raggruppamento Carristi took an active part in the brutal battle forTeruel in the winter of 1937–38 but would not see much opportunity to display mobile combat tactics until the final months of the war.

FINAL REPUBLICAN REINFORCEMENTS

The International Tank Regiment was the last Soviet tank unit deployed toSpain. By the summer of 1937 the Soviet Union had shipped 256 T-26 tanksto Spain for the various tank battalions. The last major shipment of 50 tanks

ET-26 MODEL 1933, BANDERA DE CARROS DE COMBATE DE LA LEGION, CUBAS

DE LA SAGRA, 1938

The captured T-26 tanks, more popularly called “Vickers” in Nationalist service, were rebuilt and

repainted by Panzergruppe Drohne at their Cubas base before being incorporated into the

Spanish Legion tank regiment. In ordered to prevent their misidentification as Republican tanks,

they were prominently marked with the red/yellow/red flag colors of Franco’s forces and usually

had the turret roof painted in white with a St Andrew’s Cross for air identification to prevent being

attacked by Nationalist aircraft. They were often painted in camouflage colors, usually a sand or

brown color over the usual Soviet dark. Inset are the unit insignia.

32

T-26 companies were gradually added. By 1938 the 1st Batallón de Carros de


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54

11

–4

15

51

1–

51

56

11

–6

15

21

1–

21

53

11

–3

15

12

1–

12

54

21

–4

25

52

1–

52

5

62

1–

62

5

22

1–

22

53

21

–3

25

13

1–

13

5

43

1–

43

55

31

–5

35

63

1–

63

5

23

1–

23

5

33

1–

33

5

1st

Ba

tall

ón

2n

d B

ata

lló

n


The BT-5 fast tank saw its

combat debut with the

International Tank Brigade at

Fuentes de Ebro on October

13, 1937. This unit was manned

by a mixture of Soviet crews

from the 5th Kalinovsky

Mechanized Corps from Naro-

Fominsk, and International

Brigade troops trained at Gorky

in the Soviet Union. Poor

planning led to a debacle and

heavy losses. (NARA)

were BT-5 (Bystrykhodniy Tank: fast tank). In contrast to the T-26 lighttanks, the BT-5 fast tanks were intended for deep maneuver operations, notfor close infantry support. They were a license-built copy of the AmericanChristie tank, but with a Soviet-designed turret and gun identical to that onthe T-26. They were considered by the Soviet advisers to be the most modernand best tanks in Spain, and were held in reserve through the late summer andearly autumn, waiting for a major opportunity to exploit their capabilities. As in the case of other Red Army units deployed to Spain, Soviet crews madeup only a small fraction of the personnel in the regiment. The InternationalTank Regiment was allotted the cream of the Spanish trainees and thepersonnel from the International Brigades who had returned from the GorkyTank School in the Soviet Union. For many of the Soviet advisers in Spain, the International Tank Regiment was the last, best hope to display the powerof tanks on the modern battlefield. These hopes would be crushed in theautumn of 1937 during the Zaragoza campaign.

In early October, a Republican offensive was planned against the town of Fuentes de Ebro on the road to Zaragoza. The preparations for employing the tanks were slapdash and incompetent. The International Tank Regimentwas subjected to a hasty 50km road march the night before the attack and onarriving, was informed that the tanks would carry infantry during the attack.This decision was opposed by the Soviet advisers as well as by the tankofficers, who felt that it would put the infantry at too great a risk. The missionwas planned in such haste that the regimental staff had no time to conduct a reconnaissance of the battlefield, and the Spanish command did not provideadequate details of the battle area or likely Nationalist antitank defenses,considering such issues “trivial.” This would prove fatal to the operation.

The assault began shortly after noon. The 48 tanks of the InternationalTank Regiment started the attack with a salvo of their guns, and then set offat high speed “like an express train,” with Spanish infantry clinging to theirsides. In the din and dust of the action, many of the infantry fell off the tanks,some run over and crushed by other tanks. Crossing the friendly trencheswas a fiasco; Republican infantry had not been warned, and in the confusionthere was firing between the infantry and the tanks. Once beyond the friendlylines, the tanks continued to race forward, only to be forced to halt again

34


A BT-5 of the International

Regiment after its capture at

Fuentes de Ebro. This is an

interesting illustration of the

wheel-cum-track running gear

used on the BT, which allowed

the tracks to be removed and

stored on the fender and the

tank operated on its road

wheels. The final road wheel on

either side could be powered

by a drive from the rear drive

sprocket. This feature was only

practical on hard, dry ground

or roads. (John Prigent

Collection)

when they reached the edge of an escarpment about three to four meters overthe plains below. After a delay in finding passageways to exit to the lowground below, the tankers were alarmed to see that the terrain in front of theenemy positions was covered with sugarcane fields, crisscrossed withirrigation ditches. The tanks continued their rush forward, but becamebogged down. Nationalist field guns and antitank guns began to take theirtoll. The advance could not press onward due to the terrain, and there wasnot enough infantry to hold any territory that had been gained. Afterexhausting their ammunition, the tanks slowly began to make their way backto the start point with little direction or control, leaving behind several tanksstuck in the mud. In total, the International Tank Regiment lost 19 of its 48 tanks in the attack, with several more damaged; a third of its tank crewswere killed or wounded. An American tanker in the regiment wrote shortlyafter the attack: “Courage and heroism are plentiful in Spain and the Spanishpeople have no lack of it. What they need is tactics. And as for tactics, on 13 October, Regiment BT was bankrupt.” The great expectations for the BTtank regiment had been dashed by the continuing incompetence of theRepublican senior commanders in employing tanks.

The BT-5 followed the Christie

design and could be run on its

tracks, or the tracks removed

and run on its wheels on hard

road surfaces. This shows a

Republican BT-5 of the

International Tank Brigade

during the fighting along the

Ebro River in the spring of 1938.

(NARA)

35


knocked out during the

fighting along the Ebro near

Caspe in April 1938. These were

survivors of the ill-fated tank

charge by the International

Tank Brigade at Fuentes de

Ebro on October 13, 1937.

(NARA)

of the Soviet tank force in Spain. While Soviet tankers would continue to actas advisers, the number of Soviet tank crews continued to diminish and theforce became mostly Spanish by the end of 1937. The Soviet Union endedlarge sales of tanks after the delivery of the International Tank Regiment's 50 BT-5 tanks. In October 1937, the head of the Republican tank forces,Colonel Sanchez Perales, initiated a reorganization and consolidation of theforce. The four armored brigades, one tank regiment, and assorted small unitswere to be merged into two armored divisions. These should not be confusedwith World War II armored divisions as they were not combined arms forces,lacking organic infantry or artillery.

With the end of Soviet tank sales in early 1938, the Republican armyattempted to make up for the equipment shortfalls by local production. Asidefrom the numerous and crude protected trucks, the Republican governmenthad begun to build true armored cars using armor plate and designed in cooperation with Soviet specialists. The Comisaría de Armamentos y Municiones in 1937 tried to standardize the production of an efficientarmored car by the Unión Naval de Levante in Valencia, called the UNL-35.This was patterned on the Soviet FAI armored car and was generally built onimported Soviet ZiS-5 or Ford Model 85 truck chassis. The first ten wereordered in February 1937 and about 200 were eventually completed. TheSubsecretaría de Armamentos promoted a slightly larger armored car based on

F1. BT-5, BANDERA DE CARROS DE COMBATE DE LA LEGION, CUBAS DE LA

SAGRA, 1938

Following the fiasco at Fuentes de Ebro in October 1937, the Nationalists recovered several of

the International Tank Brigade’s BT-5 fast tanks and incorporated them into the Spanish Foreign

Legion tank regiment. As was the case with most of their tanks, they received the usual

red/yellow/red turret bands, and white roof with the cross of St Andrew.

2. BT-5, INTERNATIONAL TANK BRIGADE, FUENTES DE EBRO, OCTOBER 1937

This shows the typical markings of the International Tank Brigade at the time of the disastrous

Fuentes de Ebro battle. The vehicle tactical marking is painted on the turret. A hull number has

also been added in roman numerals, probably indicating the company.

3. BT-5, 1ST TANK DIVISION, EBRO CAMPAIGN, 1938

Prior to the Teruel fighting in late 1937, the Republican tank force was consolidated into a tank

division with the surviving BT tanks in a separate regiment. In a departure from the usual practice,

the turret was painted in the Republic flag colors of purple, yellow, and red. It is unclear if this was

done with a BT-5 that had been recaptured from the Nationalists, or was simply a way of

distinguishing the relatively rare BT tanks.

The fiasco at Fuentes de Ebro on October 13, 1937, was the swansong A pair of BT-5 fast tanks

36


1

23


The final delivery batch of T-26

tanks were the Model 1937,

which had the P-40-UM

antiaircraft machine-gun

mount on the roof. This

Republican tank was captured

by the Cuerpo de Ejército

Marroquí and put on display

with other captured equipment

at an exhibition in San

Sebastián in 1938. (NARA)

a three-axle truck chassis patterned on the SovietBA-3 armored car. This was called the BlindadoModelo B.C. and was based on the Ford SD 1.5ton truck with Thornton Truxmore TimkenThird Axle Drive (6x4). About 275 wereordered and about 70–140 were completed atthe Hispano-Suiza plant in Barcelona starting in1937. Some of the later vehicles were built onimported Chevrolet 1.5 ton Series S Model 1937and Series T 1938 trucks. The standard versionwas fitted with a locally designed turret with ashort 37mm French SA.18 gun as used on theRenault FT tank, but a small number were fittedwith the larger 45mm gun turrets from damagedSoviet tanks and armored cars. The Nationalistssponsored at least two tank-production schemes,the Ansaldo Carros de Combate de Infantería in1937 with Italian help, and the Carros Verdeja,designed by a Spanish tank officer; however onlysingle prototypes were built.

In May 1938, the Republican armored forcehad 176 tanks and 285 armored cars, and inDecember 1938, 126 tanks and 291 armoredcars. The character of the armored force

continued to shift in the direction of a road-bound force tied to armored carsand protected trucks as the inventory of tanks shrank due to combat andmechanical attrition.

The last major campaign in which Soviet tank crews participated was thebitter fighting for Teruel from December 15, 1937, to February 22, 1938. The first of the new tank divisions was committed to the fighting, consistingof two T-26 battalions, the remnants of the International Tank Regiment, andother supporting units with a total of 104 tanks. The division was not used as a unified force nor had it ever been intended to be used as such. Instead,component battalions were assigned to support various divisional attacks. The fighting took place under difficult circumstances – extremely cold weather,

The most widely manufactured

armored vehicle in Spain

during the war was the UNL-35

armored car built in Valencia

on a light truck chassis. It was

armed with a single machine

gun in the hull and one in the

small turret, and a pair is seen

here in 1938 after being

captured by the Nationalists.

(NARA)

38


A column of derelict

Republican vehicles in Madrid

after the Nationalist victory in

1939. The UNL-35 armored car

seen here is missing both its

turret- and hull-mounted

machine-guns. (Author’s

collection)

The Blindado B.C. was a larger

6x4 armored car built on Ford

or Chevrolet truck chassis.

The usual armament was a

French SA.18 37mm gun and

DT machine gun in the turret,

with an additional DT machine

gun in the hull aside the driver.

This particular example is in

Nationalist hands with an

Italian Lancia 1ZM armored

car behind it. (NARA)

heavy snow, poor roads, and in mountainous country. The tank units werepraised for their efforts by the infantry they supported. While the Teruelcampaign has seldom attracted much attention for its tank actions, it wascarefully studied by the Red Army. What was striking about the campaignwas that the tank force was able to function at all. By the end of 1937 thetanks had exceeded their expected mechanical lifespan, yet the tank units wereable to maintain a respectable fraction of their tanks in combat on a dailybasis, and overall losses were modest under the circumstances – 24 tanks, ofwhich seven were captured by the Nationalists. A total of 63 tanks, more thanhalf the force, required overhaul, which was managed by the units in the field.It was a remarkable accomplishment, and reflected the growing skill of theSpanish tank crews, the maintenance units, and the tank support infrastructurecreated by Spanish industry. This legacy helps account for the ability of theRepublican tank force to maintain its size and fighting potential for most of the remainder of 1938, in spite of the cutoff in Soviet technical aid. By thetime of the summer battle along the Ebro River in 1938, the Republican tankforce had been worn down to a fraction of its former size, and 17 tanks weredestroyed and 18 captured in the last major Republican offensive.

39


Spanish experience for many of the same reasons.Though there was little to learn about tank tactics from the Spanish

experience, there were some significant technological lessons. Spain signaledthe deathknell of the cheap, machine-gun-armed tank. Tank-vs-tank-fightingin World War I had been rare, so in the 1930s many armies thought that a machine gun would be adequate. The Spanish conflict showed that tank-vs-tank had become routine, so a tank gun in the 37mm range with a coaxialmachine gun for antipersonnel use were the minimum acceptable tankweapons. The Spanish conflict exposed the vulnerability of the flimsy armorof most interwar tank designs. During World War I there had been fewdedicated antitank weapons, but by the 1930s, the arrival of abundant andpowerful infantry antitank guns in the 37–45mm range overwhelmed thearmor protection of typical tanks. The parsimonious budgets of the interwaryears favored lightly armored tanks, since tanks with better armor wouldalso require more powerful engines and more robust suspensions, resulting in a rapid escalation of both purchase price and operating costs.

These trends were not entirely unexpected. By the mid-1930s France wasalready in the midst of adopting a new generation of infantry and cavalry tanksthat would be protected against the 37mm-gun threat, and these emerged asthe Renault R-35 infantry tank, Hotchkiss H-39 cavalry tank, Somua S-35cavalry tank and the Char B1 bis battle tank by 1940. Until the civil war inSpain, both Germany and the Soviet Union relied on lightly armored tanksthat were vulnerable to 37mm guns. The German army quickly appreciated thethreat posed by the new guns, and had further incentive to move to thickerarmor due to the poor performance of its own machine-gun armed PzKpfw Itanks against the gun-armed Soviet T-26 tank. The German army began toshift to better-protected medium tanks such as the PzKpfw III. The SovietUnion’s response was more extreme, and proved to be a watershed in tankdesign: the legendary T-34 tank. The original Red Army 1937 requirement forits new A-20 cavalry tank was unexceptional and had the same 45mm gun,with only marginally better armor protection than the BT cavalry tank used in Spain. In 1938, Soviet tank designers debriefed a number of Spanish CivilWar veterans and concluded that the next-generation cavalry tank would have

G PZKPFW I AUSF A, BANDERA DE CARROS DE COMBATE DE LA LEGION, CUBAS

DE LA SAGRA, 1938

The first batch of PzKpfw I Ausf A tanks that were delivered to Spain with Panzergruppe Drohne

were painted in the Buntfarbenstrich (mottled paint pattern) consisting of No.17 earth yellow,

No.28 green, and No.18 brown. When tanks were rebuilt, they were sometimes overpainted in

lighter finishes more suitable for Spanish conditions, with bands of sand- or earth-colored paints.

The PzKpfw I tanks eventually received similar markings to the Legion T-26, except that the turret

bands were far less conspicuous, limited to a tapering quadrangle on the rear of the turret. The

St Andrew’s Cross marking was usually painted on the turret hatch as seen here. The Legion

Escudo marking was carried adjacent to the Nationalist tricolor. The markings of the 1st Batallón

were based around the diamond, while the 2nd Batallón used the circle. Colors corresponded to

numbers (1 = red, 2 = yellow, and 3 = white). The top of the circle or diamond indicated company,

so a circle or diamond with a red top was 1st Company, yellow was 2nd Company, etc. The lower

half indicated the section, so a circle or diamond with a red bottom was 1st Section, yellow was

2nd, etc. The headquarters company was a variation on this. In the 1st Batallón, the diamond was

in the company color, with a black M (Mando), while in the case of the 2nd Batallón, a red circle

was used but with a horizontal band in company colors. Vehicle tactical numbers were three digit,

the first indicating company, the second indicating section and third indicating the separate

vehicle. In the case of the 2nd Batallón, the company numbers were 4 to 6.

40

The fighting in the latter half of 1938 went badly for the Republican forces;Catalonia was cut off from the rest of the Republican-held territory andFranco’s forces gradually overwhelmed the remaining strongholds. By this stageof the war, the armored forces on both sides were mechanically exhaustedthough they continued to be used on a small scale. In view of the indifferentperformance of Italian tank units during most of the war, the RaggruppamentoCarristi performed remarkably well in the campaigns in late 1938 and early1939. It was committed as the spearhead of CTV motorized columns ondeep-penetration missions, including a 200km deep raid during the finalcampaign in Catalonia in April 1939. Of the 157 Italian tankettes deployed inSpain, 87 were knocked out and about 70 remained at the end of the war.

LESSONS OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

Most of the “lessons learned” from the Spanish Civil War were not lessonsat all, but simply deductions based on flimsy or non-existent evidence bent to fit existing preconceptions. Most military analysts in the 1930s, includingthe military intelligence services of the Great Powers, had few firm facts aboutscale or conduct of tank operations in Spain. A British attaché in Spain during the war wisely warned that “the greatest caution must be used in deducinggeneral lessons from this war: a little adroitness and it will be possible to useit to ‘prove’ any preconceived theory.” Although the armies participating inSpain (including the Soviet, German, and Italian armies) collected extensivedata from their own experiences, this material was not widely shared andmuch of it still has not seen the light of day more than a half-century after theevent. A study at the US Army Infantry School by Captain Thomas Stark in 1939 entitled “Employment of Tanks in the Spanish Civil War” concludedthat the lack of detailed information precluded any comprehensive analysis.This information gap allowed military analysts of the period to give free reinto their own prejudices on the subject of army mechanization. For nearlyevery lesson drawn from Spain by one group of military theorists, another canbe found arguing precisely the opposite viewpoint.Spain did not serve as “the proving ground for blitzkrieg,” as it has oftenbeen described, as there were too few tanks to ever attempt large-scale tank



The BA-6 medium-armored car

was armed with the same

turret and 45mm gun as the T-

26 tank. This one was knocked

out during the fighting along

the Ebro in 1938. Spain bought

3 BA-3, 37 BA-6, and 20 FAI

armored cars from the Soviet

Union. (NARA)

This Blindado Cardé y Escoriaza

is a fairly typical example of the

types of protected trucks built

by the Republican forces.

This particular example was

constructed at the well-known

railroad carriage plant in

Zaragoza in Aragón in

September 1936. It is seen

here during the fighting in

the winter of 1937–38 around

Teruel. (NARA)

supplies but, contrary to the widely held belief that 1,000 or more tanks weresupplied, in fact only about 300 tanks were sent to Spain. These arrived overthe course of two years so on only a few occasions were Republican forcesable to field more than 100 operational tanks. Usually operations wereconducted by a handful of scattered companies of tanks numbering a fewdozen. The Nationalist tank forces had even smaller tank contingents, whichseldom operated above platoon or company level.

The second impediment to assessing the tactical importance of tanks wasin the quality of the crews in Spain. Except for the Italian CTV tankettecompanies, the majority of Republican and Nationalist tank crews wereSpanish or foreign volunteers. The training provided was rudimentary atbest, and consisted of the essentials of tank operation, but little on tanktactics or tank doctrine. Senior Spanish commanders had little or noknowledge about how tank units were supposed to be used on the battlefield.As a result, tank operations in Spain were conducted by tank crews whoknew scarcely more than basic operations, led by officers with little or notactical training, on missions conceived by senior commanders who had no grasp of the tactical potential or shortcomings of tank units in combat.

42

operations. The Republican forces had the largest tank arsenal due to Soviet


a decisive impact on the Spanish battlefield.While most “lessons learned” were based on dubious press accounts and

ill-informed speculation, there were important exceptions. Due to its insideconnections in Spain, the Red Army had an extensive collection of data on theactual conduct of tank operations during the Spanish Civil War. A SovietGeneral Staff in 1939 concluded that the full potential of tanks had not beendisplayed in Spain but that the Red Army should continue to pursue its ownplans to use tanks on a mass scale regardless of the Spanish experience, dueto the ambiguous lessons of the civil war. The Soviet lessons were alsodistorted by Stalin’s grotesque political purges against the Soviet officer cadresat this time. The German army completely dismissed the tactical lessons of theSpanish experience for many of the same reasons.

During the final year of the war

some Republican units

followed the Nationalist style

and painted identity bands on

the tank turret, in this case the

purple, yellow, and red, of the

Republican flag. This BT-5 took

part in the fighting on the Ebro

in the spring of 1938. (NARA)

A training exercise by the


Combate de la Legion at the

Panzergruppe Drohne training

camp near Cubas de la Sagra

in 1938 after a smoke grenade

was thrown underneath the

lead T-26 tank. (NARA)

43

It should not have come as a surprise to anyone that tanks did not have


Though there was little to learn about tank tactics from the Spanishexperience, there were some significant technological lessons. Spain signaledthe deathknell of the cheap, machine-gun-armed tank. Tank-vs-tank-fightingin World War I had been rare, so in the 1930s many armies thought that a machine gun would be adequate. The Spanish conflict showed that tank-vs-tank had become routine, so a tank gun in the 37mm range with a coaxialmachine gun for antipersonnel use were the minimum acceptable tankweapons. The Spanish conflict exposed the vulnerability of the flimsy armorof most interwar tank designs. During World War I there had been fewdedicated antitank weapons, but by the 1930s, the arrival of abundant andpowerful infantry antitank guns in the 37–45mm range overwhelmed thearmor protection of typical tanks. The parsimonious budgets of the interwaryears favored lightly armored tanks, since tanks with better armor wouldalso require more powerful engines and more robust suspensions, resulting in a rapid escalation of both purchase price and operating costs.

These trends were not entirely unexpected. By the mid-1930s France wasalready in the midst of adopting a new generation of infantry and cavalry tanksthat would be protected against the 37mm-gun threat, and these emerged asthe Renault R-35 infantry tank, Hotchkiss H-39 cavalry tank, Somua S-35cavalry tank and the Char B1 bis battle tank by 1940. Until the civil war inSpain, both Germany and the Soviet Union relied on lightly armored tanksthat were vulnerable to 37mm guns. The German army quickly appreciated thethreat posed by the new guns, and had further incentive to move to thickerarmor due to the poor performance of its own machine-gun armed PzKpfw Itanks against the gun-armed Soviet T-26 tank. The German army began toshift to better-protected medium tanks such as the PzKpfw III. The SovietUnion’s response was more extreme, and proved to be a watershed in tank

Some 123 T-26 tanks were still

intact at the end of the war. As

a result, the T-26 remained in

Spanish army service in

dwindling numbers into the

early 1960s. Here they are seen

on parade being carried by

White 920 tank transporters.

(NARA)

44


45

design: the legendary T-34 tank. The original Red Army 1937 requirement forits new A-20 cavalry tank was unexceptional and had the same 45mm gun,with only marginally better armor protection than the BT cavalry tank used in Spain. In 1938, Soviet tank designers debriefed a number of Spanish CivilWar veterans and concluded that the next-generation cavalry tank would haveto be proof against the current 37mm gun. Furthermore, the Soviet designersconcluded that other armies would follow the same path and up-armor theirtanks in similar fashion. So to deal with the threat posed by future enemytanks, the new Soviet cavalry tank would have to be armed with a weaponmore powerful than the 37mm gun or its Soviet 45mm equivalent to defeat thefuture enemy tank armor. The Soviet designers applied one of the criticalparadigms of technological innovation to the design – that to prevail on thebattlefield, the new tank had to be based on an appreciation of the futurethreat. The A-20 was redesigned and emerged in 1940–41 as the T-34 tank.

The T-34 extended the three primary attributes of tank design – armor,firepower, and mobility – in a well-balanced package not previously seenanywhere else. So, for example, while contemporary French infantry tankslike the R-35 and British infantry tanks like the Matilda I had excellentarmored protection, they were deficient in both firepower and mobility.British cruiser tanks had excellent mobility, but poor armor and mediocrefirepower. French battle tanks like the Char B1 bis had good armor protectionand firepower, but mediocre mobility. German medium tanks such as thePzKpfw III had a good balance of armor, firepower, and mobility, but notenough to deal with the T-34. When it first appeared in combat in June 1941,the T-34 proved to be a major shock to the Wehrmacht, which was expectingto encounter an adversary equipped with tanks of the Spanish Civil Wargeneration. The poor performance of German tanks and antitank gunsagainst the T-34 set off an arms race on the Russian Front that had

One of the odder footnotes

of the Spanish Civil War armor

battles was the use of a few

Blindado B.C. by the

Wehrmacht in the opening

phases of Operation Barbarossain Russia in June 1941. About

20 of these vehicles had

crossed the border from Spain

into France in 1939 and were

subsequently used by the

French army in 1940. They were

captured by the Germans in

1940 and put back into service.

(Author’s collection)


repercussions in every other theater of the European war. The Germanresponse, the Panther medium tank and the PaK 40 75mm antitank gun,would prove to be the bane of Allied tank forces elsewhere, such as the Alliedcampaigns in France in 1944. The T-34 set the standard for tank design in World War II based on the technological lessons of the Spanish Civil War.

FURTHER READING

There has been a flurry of writing on tanks in the Spanish Civil War in Spainin recent years, centered on the new Spanish defense magazine RevistaEspañola de Historia Militar and its publisher, Quirón Ediciones inValladolid. The bibliography below lists only a fraction of the articles dealingwith this subject published over the past few years.

The primary archival source for this book was the splendid collection of documents obtained from the Russian State Military Archives (RGVA) by Mary Habeck at Yale University and currently housed at the Manuscriptand Archives branch of Sterling Memorial Library. The Russian State MilitaryArchive Collection (RSMAC-Group 1670) deals with Soviet–German militarycollaboration in the 1920s and with Soviet military participation in theSpanish Civil War. There are hundreds of thousands of pages of Russianreports on the Spanish Civil War, including detailed accounts of arms delivery,tactical experiences, after-action reports, and a wealth of other material. Fora more extensive description of this unique resource, my JSMS article listedbelow has extensive endnotes on the reports. The Red Army also publishedan extensive series of articles on the lessons of the Spanish Civil War in thelate 1930s in their journals Voenniy Mysl and Voenno-istorichesskiy zhurnal,and I used the collections of the Lehman Library, School of InternationalAffairs, Columbia University. I also looked through the attaché reports of theUS Army in the Military Intelligence Division records at the US NationalArchives and Records Administration (NARA).

ArticlesAlvarez, José, “Tank Warfare during the Rif Rebellion,” Armor, January–February

1997, pp. 26–27Caiti, Pierangelo & Pirella, Alberto, “The Role of Italian Armor in the Spanish

Civil War,” Armor, May–June 1986, pp. 40–44Candil, Antonio, “Soviet Armor in Spain: Aid Mission to Republicans Testing

Doctrine and Equipment,” Armor, March–April 1999, pp. 31–38Crespo Fresno, Carlos & Franco, Lucas Molina, “El desconocido «carro veloce CV-

3/35» Breda,” Revista Española de Historia Militar, January 2000, pp. 54–55Daley, John, “The Theory and Practice of Armored Warfare in Spain, October

1936–February 1937,” Armor, March–April 1999, pp. 30, 39–40Daley, John, “Soviet and German Advisors Put Doctrine to the Test: Tanks in

the Siege of Madrid,” Armor, May–June 1999, pp. 33–38Franco, Lucas Molina & Garcia, José Manrique, “Carros de combata autóctonos

en el Ejército Espagñol 1936–39,” Revista Española de Historia Militar,January–February 2003, pp. 51–60

Franco, Lucas Molina; Garcia, José Manrique & Pérez, Artemio Mortera,“Tanques Soviéticos para el Ejército Nacional 1936–1939,” RevistaEspañola de Historia Militar, March 2003, pp. 136–149

Franco, Lucas Molina, “Blindados en la Revolucion de Asturias 1934,” RevistaEspañola de Historia Militar, October 2004, pp. 207–2010

46


47

Harvey, A. D., “The Spanish Civil War as Seen by British Officers,” RUSI Journal,August 1996, pp. 65–67

Kolomiets, Maksim & Moshchanskiy, Ilya, “Tanki Ispanskoi Respubliki,”Tankomaster, Nos. 2–3 1998, pp. 2–9

Lalinde, Leonardo Blanco, “La Empresa Carde y Escoriaza: Producion de materialmilitary durante la Guerra Civil Española,” Revista Española de HistoriaMilitar, July–August 2002, pp. 44–50

Manrique, J. M., “Algo mas sobre los «carros italianos» en 1936/39,” RevistaEspañola de Historia Militar, May 2000, pp. 169–174, September 2000, pp. 299–303

Surlémont, Raymond, “Armour on Rails in the Spanish Civil War,” MilitaryModelling, July 1995, pp. 31–34

Surlémont, Raymond, “Blindés Italiens en terre d’Espagne 1936–1939,” TankMuseum News, No. 45, pp. 4–11

Zaloga, Steven, “Soviet Tank Operations in the Spanish Civil War,” Journal ofSlavic Military Studies, September 1999, pp. 134–162

BooksAlbert, F. C., Carros de Combate y Vehiculos Blindados de la Guerra 1936–1939,

Borras (1980)Duaso, Josep Maria Mata & Gutiérrez, Francisco Marín, Blindados autóctonos en

la Guerra Civil Española, Galland (2008)Estes, Kenneth, History in Dispute: The Spanish Civil War, St. James (2004)Franco, Lucas Molina & Garcia, José Manrique, Blindados Allemanes en el

Ejército de Franco, Galland (2008)Franco, Lucas Molina & Garcia, José Manrique, Blindados Italianos en el Ejército

de Franco, Galland (2007)Franco, Lucas Molina & Garcia, José Manrique, Blindados Soviéticos en el Ejército

de Franco, Galland (2007)Franco, Lucas Molina & Garcia, José Manrique, Soldiers of Von Thoma: Legion

Condor Ground Forces in the Spanish Civil War 1936–1939, Schiffer (2008)Habeck, Mary, Storm of Steel: The Development of Armor Doctrine in Germany

and the Soviet Union 1919–1939, Cornell (2003)Howson, Gerald, Arms for Spain: The Untold Story of the Spanish Civil War, John

Murray (1998)Jentz, Thomas, Panzerkampfwagen I No. 1–2, Panzertracks (2002)Lyubarskiy, S., Nekotorye operativno-takticheskie vyvody iz opyta voyni v Ispanii,

Red Army General Staff (1939)Marin, Francisco & Mata, Josep Maria, Blindados: Los Medios Blindados de

Ruedas en Espana: Un Siglo de Historia Vol. 1, Quiron (2002)Marin, Francisco & Mata, Josep Maria, Carros de Combate y Vehículos de

cadenzas del Ejército Espagñol, Revista Española de Historia Militar, Part-work (2004–2005)

de Mazarrasa, Javier, Los Carros de Combate en la Guerra de España 1936–1939,Quiron (1998)

Royo, Oscar Bruña, Vehiculos Acorazados en el Tercia Vol. 1, Quiron (1998)Strasheim, Rainer & Prigent, John, et al., Panzerwaffe: The Evolution of the

Panzerwaffe to the Fall of Poland 1939, Ian Allen (2007)Svirin, Mikhail & Kolomiyets, Maksim, T-26 Legkiy Tank, Frontovaya

Illyustratsiya (2003)Taibo, Javier, Blindados y Carros de Combate Españoles 1906–1939, Defensa

(1996)


48

Note: letters in bold refer to plates and illustrations.

A-20 cavalry tank (Russian) 45antitank guns 29, 34; German PaK 40

75mm 46; German Rheinmetall 37mm PaK 36 5, 6, 8, 20, 23, 28, 32; Italian 47mm 32; Soviet 19-K 45mm 5, 8

‘Aranjuez Group’ (Republican) 15, 16–18; mechanical exhaustion 18

Archena training and technical center 15Arman, Maj Paul 15–16, 18, 19, 23armored cars 15; BA-3 (Russian) 15, 22,

27, 40; BA-6 medium 40, 40; Bilbao (Spanish) 11, 11–12; Blindado B.C. (Spanish) 38, 39; Blindado B.C. Barbarossa Operation 45; FAI (Russian) 27, 40; Lancia 1ZM (Italian) 19, 20, 39; UNL-35 (Spanish) 38, 39

armored forces, Republican/Nationalist 1936 14

Army of Africa, Spanish 12–13Asturias revolt (1934) 11

Bandera de Carros de Combate de la Legion D24–5, E32–3, F36–7, G40–1;

Baresi, P. 16Basque/Catalan separatists 13battle zone map, Civil War 12Befehlswagen I command tanks 22, 23,

26Breda 20mm cannon (Modela 1935)

30–1Brunete offensive 27–9; tank casualties

29 Western military analysis of 28–9BT-5 fast tanks (Russian) 27, 34, 35, 36,

F36–7, 43, 45; captured vehicles F36–7

Carabineros 13Carden-Loyd tankette (British) 6Carrasco, D. José Pujales 20Carro Armado Landesa tank (Spanish)

11Catalan/Basque separatists 13Char B1 bis battle tank (French) 44Chevrolet Series S/T Model 1.5 ton

trucks 38Christie tank (US) 34Civil Guard 13Civil War, Spanish: battle zone map 12; as

‘blitzkrieg proving ground’ 42; German Army assessment of operations 42; lessons 40–6; origins 12–13; Red Army assessment of operations 42; technological lessons 44

Compañía artillería-legionaria ‘Navalcarnero’ 15; Seseña raid 16

Condor Legion, German 20Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV), Italian

13, 20, 29, 31, 40, 42; tankette support companies 26

CV 3/33 Carro Veloce tankettes (Italian) 5, 6, 13, 20;

CV 3/35 Carro Veloce tankettes (Italian) 5, 6, 13, 15, 18, C20–1; Breda 20mm conversion C20–1, 31; Seseña raid 16; tank-vs-tank skirmishers 26

Dodge K-32 trucks 12

Ebro River battles (1938) 39, 40Estienne, Jean-Baptiste 6

Fiat-3000A light tank (Italian) 11Ford SD 1.5 ton truck 38Fortuna, Capt Oreste 15Franco, Francisco 10Fuentes de Ebro attack 34–6Fuller, Maj-Gen J. F. C. 6, 28

Germany: assessment of Civil War operations 42; intervention 20–3

Gorky Tank School, Soviet Russia 27, 34Gruppe Imker (beekeeper), German

ground forces in SpainGuadalajara offensive 26, 29; tank

casualties 29Guardia de Asalto 11–12

Hitler, Adolf 6, 13Hotchkiss H-39 cavalry tank (French) 44

infantry/tank cooperation 16, 19, 23International Brigades (Republican) 13;

12th 23; 14th 23; Tank Regiment 32–6, 34, 35, F36–7, 38–9

Jarama River operation 23–6; losses 26, 29

Kalinovsky Mechanised Corps, Red Army 34

Krivoshein, Brig Semyon M. 15, 16–18, 19, 23

Kulik, Gen G. I. 26

Liddell Hart, B. H. 28

M3 Stuart tank (US) 7M11/39 tank (Italian) 7M13/40 tank (Italian) 7Madrid, initial battles for 14–29; tank

casualties 29Majandahonda offensive 23Matilda I infantry tank (British) 45Molotov cocktails 16

Nationalist expansion 29–32Nationalist forces; Army of the North

15;Regimiento de Carros (LCC) número 2 11, 14; Bandera de Carros de Combate de la Legion D24–5, E32–3, F36–7, G40–1; 1st Batallón de Carros de Combate 6, 7, 20, 27, 28, 32, 32; 2nd Batallón de Carros de Combate, 31

‘Negrillos’ Nationalist tank companies 20, 22

Novak, Capt A. 15

Panther medium tank (German) 46Panzergruppe Drohne 19, 20, 22, 27, 32,

42Pavlov, Brig D. G. 23, 26People’s Republican Army (ERP) 13Pogodin, D. 18Polish shipments of Renault FT tanks

29–30Popular Front government, Spanish 12,

13protected trucks 8, 11, 14, 40PzKpfw I tank (German) 27, 44; Ausf A

6–7, 6, 20, 22, 28, G40–1; Ausf A

flame-thrower 22; Ausf A, Breda 20mm cannon conversion 30–1, 30; Ausf B 19, 20, 22, 30; losses at Pozuela 22

PzKpfw III tank (German) 44, 45

Raggruppamento Carristi (RC), Italian C20–1, 40; formation 32

Raggruppamento Reparti Specializzati (RRS), Italian 20, 29

Red Army, Soviet: assessment of Civil War operations 42; units in Spain 34

Renault FT light tank (French) 6, 10, 11, 11, 29, 30, 32; ‘Aranjuez Group’ 18;

Polish shipments 29–30Renault R-35 infantry tank (French) 44,

45Republican forces; Army of the North

30; 5th corps 27, 28; 18th corps 27–8; 1st Tank Division F36–7; 15th Division 28; 34th Division 28; 1st armored brigade 23–9; International Brigades 13; 12th 23; 14th 23; International Tank Regiment 32–6, 34, 35, F36–7; 38–9; Regimiento de Carros (LCC) número 1 11, 14, 27; 1st tank battalion 15–16; Compañia de Carros Orugas 29 see also‘Aranjuez Group’

Republican reinforcements, final 32–40‘Rusas’ Nationalist tank companies 20

Sanjurjo, Gen José 13Schneider CA1 tank (Spanish) A8–9, 10Seseña raid 167TP tank (Polish) 7Somua S-35 cavalry tank (French) 44Soviet tank shipments 27, 32–4, 36Spanish Foreign Legion 10, 12Stark, Capt Thomas 41

T-26 tank (Russian) 5, 6, 7–8, 14, 15, 20, 22, 34; antiaircraft machine gun mount 7; ‘Aranjuez Group’ 15, B16–17; captured vehicles 4, 6, D24–5, 31, 31–2, 32, E32–3; fire support use in PzKpfw I companies 31–2; firepower superiority 23, 30; mechanical exhaustion 18; post-war tanks in service 44; Seseña raid 16, 18; tank-vs-tank skirmishers 26; variants 8

T-34 tank (Russian) 45–6tank armament 44–5; Breda 20mm

cannon (Modela 1935) 30–1; French 37mm SA.18 38; German 20mm KwK30 23; Soviet 45mm 8

tank crews, 42; International Brigade 26–7; Soviet 38; Spanish 16, 19, 26–7, 39

tank production schemes in Spain 36–8tank technology (1930s) 5–8tank-vs-tank skirmishers 26, 44technological lessons from Civil War 44Teruel campaign 38–9, 40Thoma, Wilhelm Von 19, 20, 23, 31Trubia-Naval A4 tank (Spanish) A8–9,

10, 29, 29, 30, 32

Vickers 6-ton export tank (British) 6, 7Villakansas, Maj P. 15Villanueva de la Cañada 28

Zaragoza campaign 34

INDEX


NEW VANGUARD • 170 The design, development, operation and history of the

machinery of warfare through the ages


The tanks used during the Spanish Civil War are not often examinedin any great detail, and are often labeled as little more than testvehicles in a convenient proving ground before World War II. But,with groundbreaking research, armor expert Steven J Zaloga hastaken a fresh look at the tanks deployed in Spain, examining howfuture tanks and armored tactics were shaped and honed by the crews’experiences, and how Germany was able to benefit from these lessonswhile their Soviet opponents were not. Based on recently uncoveredrecords of Soviet tankers in Spain and other rare archival accounts, thisbook describes the various tanks deployed during the Spanish Civil War,including the PzKpfw I and the T-26.

Full color artwork Illustrations Unrivaled detail Cutaway artwork

OSPREYP U B L I S H I N G

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Documents

SPANISH CIVIL WAR TANKSeducacion-holistica.org/notepad/documentos/War/New Vanguard/Spani… · Soviet T-26. This captured ... The Carro Veloce CV 3/35 was the most common version